Haris Epaminonda at Galleria Massimo Minini

Artist: Haris Epaminonda

Exhibition title: VOL. XXXII

Venue: Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, Italy

Date: May – July, 2024

Photography: Petrò Gilberti / All images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia

As we continue with the lucky series of plain-spoken press releases, arises from the text “How NOT TO write a press release”, we reach the end of another season (from September to July). Year #51 of this wonderful adventure…

When we first met Haris Epaminonda as a promising young woman, we fell in love with her way of approaching art: her Cypriot extraction, culture and traditions necessarily led her to focus on both ancient myths and the signs of a present which is fragile yet beautiful.

On her travels, Haris carries boxes, crates, and saddlebags full of everyday objects that first capture her attention and later fuel her imagination. Objects that connect a touristy present to a past that has become mythical, if nothing else because of the time that has elapsed.

The time that goes by and recedes into the mists of memory, turning everything to dust and sand, is also the element that embeds people and things in myth.

And the colour of Epaminonda’s “pastellone” works is given by a mixture of chalk and marble dust, according to an ancient Venetian formula prior to even ancient Rome. The result is a soft and dusty white which pushes the painting far away into space and time.

This concealment has been the focal point of all works by Christo, the artist that made us understand that to see deep down you have to close your eyes and free your mind from preconceptions.

If we have no hesitations, afterthoughts or fears, we set the conditions to embrace new works, which we shall feel free to criticize only on the basis of a rationale perhaps inexplicable, not quite an act of faith, but rather of sharing, of participation: to take a firm stand based on reason.